


open your eyes and share this burden somehow

by millipop



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Road Trips, the dreaded road trip au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-03
Updated: 2017-08-03
Packaged: 2018-12-10 15:07:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11694216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/millipop/pseuds/millipop
Summary: Clarke Griffin has never had a conversation with Bellamy Blake that didn't end in a screaming match. But when her best friend across the country is hurt, a reluctant and awkward road trip with her worst enemy becomes Clarke's only option.





	open your eyes and share this burden somehow

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally written like 2 years ago as a school assignment with anonymous names - it figures I'd accidentally write these two dorks. Thanks to Alice for taking a look at this so I had the guts to upload it. Title from Beginner's Guide to Destroying the Moon by Foster the People.

Squinting into the sun, it’s hard for Clarke to spot when the next car approaches, and five have hurtled past her before she learns to listen for the subtle rumble. The next seven cars ignore her outstretched thumb, however, and she feels her mouth drying from the combination of insistent sun and lack of water.

There’s a pause in the traffic, for long enough that she almost convinces herself that no one else is coming, that she’ll never reach the hospital, never reach Raven, and she feels her throat begin to close up.

All of this because of trusting someone she never should have, someone her friends didn’t even like. It was all coming back to get her now, and as Clarke falters in the sun, she almost wishes she could melt into the ground, to make it all go away.

But then she suddenly hears another motor approaching, and she throws her thumb out, blind and desperate, and is gratified when the car screeches into the dust ahead of her. Clarke runs up to it - only vaguely questioning its familiarity - hauling her duffel bag on her shoulder, and opens the passenger seat door.

She feels a sinking feeling in her stomach when she sees the driver – and her face must drop too, because Bellamy scowls at her when he gestures for her to throw her bag in the backseat.

Of course. Of course he’d be going too – she feels stupid for not thinking of him, but she’s not naïve enough to mention it. Raven’s his friend too (and has always been a vocal supporter of Clarke being the one to surrender their enmity), it would probably insult him even further if she expressed any sort of surprise. Bellamy is many things but he’s dedicated to his friends.

So instead she puts on a tight smile, resigned to the fact that she’s going to spend hours in a car with _him_ , of all people. Reluctantly nodding her thanks, she slams the door behind her.

The first half an hour inches by, filled with her fingers drumming on the window sill, his clearing his throat for the hundredth time, her licking her lips, and him frowning at the road ahead as it glides, smooth as a ribbon, beneath them. Eventually Clarke gives up and opens up a game on her phone – a simple one that doesn’t require any real thinking. But the battery is already low and it’s not long before she sets the useless device aside and leans forward to turn on the radio.

If anything, it renders the drive quieter. She leans her forehead against the cool glass of the window, and strains her ears to listen to the voices dribbling from the faulty speakers. The landscape undulates as they drive further and further, it becomes a repetitive pattern of towns, farmland, and nondescript trees. The voices on the radio dissolve into static after nearly two hours, and it’s only then they start a conversation.

It’s stilted, but he asks her about her college major, and she returns an equally mannered response about his new job as a teacher, before asking after Octavia, who’s apparently overseas. This vein extends for some time – the questions become more detailed, the answers a bit more personal, and Clarke’s chest is tight with tension, but as towns flash by she relaxes. Their usual conversations are full of bitterness and anger, but she feels content, this time, to make small talk and watch the sky dim from blue to grey to black above the car.

They both seem to take to care to steer the conversation away from anything to do with money  - or anything incendiary really. It’s where she and Bellamy have blown up, previously, and she feels the weight of what they’re not talking about between them. It’s strange almost; because for once Clarke feels like underneath all the usual mindless sniping and the heavy fog of all their differences, they could almost pass as friends.

So it’s almost disappointing – almost – when he flicks his blinker on and swerves into a gas station. She feels the brief, shallow rapport they’ve drummed up vanish when Bellamy slams the door behind him leaving to pay for the overpriced fuel.

 Clarke sinks into her seat – she can’t offer to pay or drive, but she refuses to feel guilty over that – he picked her up, regardless of their far from amiable relationship, she’s his problem now. She knows that money is one of the things between them, but regardless of her background, Clarke isn’t exactly living a luxury life right now. He would know that, she thinks, if he just got over himself.

Obviously, he seems to agree with her. He slides back into the car, grimacing, but shoves a bottle of water and some barbeque chips in her lap, waving off her thanks by pulling out of the station much too fast, and pointing to his own coke bottle and salt and vinegar packet, insisting it was a two-for-one deal.

The drive is different now. The hot summer sunlight is gone, and a dark cloak of chill wind has arrived, and there’s nothing to see out the window but the brief flash of trees and bush on the edge of the road and the headlights sweeping the tarmac. It’s very near silent – the radio must have finally conked out, but they both crunch on the chips and crinkle the packets, and Clarke’s satisfied with the lack of animosity in the air. Raven would be proud, she thinks, and hopes she can give her friend something to laugh about when they get there.

She interrupts the peace to tell him as much, and is rewarded when Bellamy laughs. It’s weird hearing that from him – Clarke’s unsure whether she’s heard his laugh more than twice in all the time she’s known him. But it’s a good laugh, one that makes Bellamy’s eyes crinkle and dimples show, and Clarke resolves to earn his laugh more often from now, rather than his contempt.

She tells him this too, and suddenly they’re settling into a steady back and forth. But instead of the usual underlying meanness, the attempt to hurt, to barb; now they’re aiming to make each other grin and snort. They already knew each other well (which is why they had the ability to fight so easily) , so it’s unsettling, now, how similar their sense of humour is, how parallel their goals are, once they forget all the irrelevant bullshit.

At some point, in a break in conversation, he shifts in his seat, and although she hates (hated?) him, she knows Bellamy well enough to tell he’s hesitating. With some urging, he looks at her, and lines form on his brow when he asks her why she was hitchhiking instead of catching a plane to the hospital to see her best friend.

Hesitating herself, she decides that if he’s the one picking her up off the sides of dingy roads, he ought to know why. She launches into the story, and curls up in her seat. The whole thing is pathetic and clichéd, featuring her ex leaving her on the side of the road, and a lack of money from being so trusting, but Bellamy doesn’t say anything, doesn’t judge, only nodding sympathetically at the appropriate moments.

But it isn’t long before Clarke’s stress tirade eases into the territory of why they’re speeding to a hospital halfway across the country, and tears start sliding down her cheeks. She tries to discreetly remove them, but Bellamy notices with a widening of eyes, much to her alarm, and soon she’s crying, tears, sobs, and all. All the anger and sadness about her breakup, the worry for Raven, the general shock in what’s happened in such a small space of time – it leaks out through her eyelashes and down her face, and Clarke’s never felt so vulnerable.

To her shock, however, (or maybe not. Bellamy’s always been an asshole, but he’s never been the worst sort of dick), he doesn’t keep driving or stay silent. Clarke feels the car pulling over, and then she’s being hugged by Bellamy Blake over the console of his shitty car.

Clarke can’t say she’s ever thought about hugging Bellamy Blake before. They were enemies, after all. But now it’s happening, Clarke can’t say she minds. In fact, it’s making her feel immensely better; Bellamy, it turns out, is a great hugger. She can’t quite believe how comforted she feels, when just four hours ago she would have listed Bellamy a long way down her list of people to hug.

But it’s been a long few hours, and a long, difficult and awful day in general, and if this is one of the major events Clarke has to experience today, then it’s a good one, and she’s grateful.

They carefully pull apart, and Clarke tearily smiles at him, and is heartened when he gives her a soft one back. She can’t say she’s seen that expression directed towards her before – it really is a new world.

Bellamy turns the car back on and they get back on the road. Now they talk softly about Raven and what’s ahead, and it really, solidly feels like she has an ally in Bellamy now. They’re both worried about the same things: insurance, Raven’s job, and how their friend will cope with what happened. It feels unbelievably good for Clarke to not only get it all off her chest, but have someone to agree and voice the things she can’t find the words to say.

It’s half the situation, half her total exhaustion, but Clarke’s eyes start to droop only half an hour later. It’s the middle of the night now, and she’s been awake for hours. She hopes Bellamy doesn’t mind driving, but she can’t even find the energy to ask him.

The last thing she hears before fading into slumber is a quiet murmur that she shouldn’t worry, and that everything would sort out. And at this, the tension leaks out of her muscles and she doesn’t wake until light hits her eyelids and he’s softly calling her name.

She doesn’t register what’s happening until he shakes her shoulder, it’s then that she jerks awake and she glares around blearily, her mind catching up to what happened last night. Bellamy chuckles as she blinks at him sleepily, and suddenly it becomes clear. Apparently, Clarke Griffin is now friends with Bellamy Blake, and she’s not unhappy about it all.

She stretches out her neck as he gives her the rundown on updates from his phone he can now check. It’s the best sleep she’s had in ages, and she thinks it’s even possible that it was Bellamy’s presence that made it so, which is entirely too weird to think about.

Clarke shakes off a red hoodie – his, she recognises – and smiles down at it. The words get stuck in her throat – has she really never said this to him before? – when she croaks a thanks to him, an entirely new sort of phrase in relation to Bellamy, for her.

He returns her smile, gently, and places his hand over hers where it’s idling on her armrest, and even though Clarke’s heartbeat starts to become irregular, it feels natural. Everything they need to say about what’s changed in the last day is in this touch, and Clarke’s sure that this is a new beginning – perhaps in more ways than one.

Maybe this really can be something to brighten Raven’s outlook.

They’re in an underground carpark, but Clarke sees a sign for the hospital entrance in the distance, and sighs, pushing her head back against the headrest. Her eyes are sore, her neck aches, but he had brought her here, and they’d had no fights, and he’s the best thing to happen in all of the mess.

Bellamy shrugs at her, and climbs out of the car, gesturing for her to follow him, and they make their way to the elevator, walking in step. At the front desk, they argue over which way it is to Raven’s room, but there’s no heat. They’re in this together now, and for Raven’s sake at least, Clarke’s glad.

Whatever happens next, she’s all the more ready with Bellamy Blake on her side. She’s just sorry it took so long for them to figure it out. But they have time now, to talk.

Clarke, for once, is looking forward to it.


End file.
